


Battle of Wills

by violent_ends



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Ella Lopez & Lucifer Morningstar Friendship, Ella Lopez Finds Out, Episode: s05e08 Spoiler Alert, F/M, Gen, Lucifer (TV) Season/Series 05, Lucifer (TV) Season/Series 05 Part 1, Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) Whump, Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) Wing Reveal, Panic Attacks, What-If, self-actualization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26086468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violent_ends/pseuds/violent_ends
Summary: He feels like he can’t breathe, without her. He feels like there is no reason to.That’s when suddenly, like clockwork, his body catches up.And Lucifer can’t breatheat all.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, Ella Lopez & Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 80
Kudos: 824





	Battle of Wills

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! How are we doing? So, here is my very first S5 fic. Please read only if you have watched episode 5x08, and be aware of the tags.

Lucifer lands right outside Chloe's apartment door so violently his knees shake with it, threatening to give out from under him. The sun is up in the sky, but her voicemail was recorded last night. Quite some time ago. _Too long ago_.

The sounds of her struggle and her muffled screams echo in his ears, painting a haunting picture. He almost doesn’t want to open the door, almost wishes he could ask his brother to slow down time again to be able to live in this moment for a bit longer: the moment before finding out what happened to her.

He imagines Chloe dead, like those women. Imagines her tied to a chair with white flowers in her hands, stained with her own blood. Or maybe, there was no need for all that staging, this time. Maybe she was just taken out of the equation, killed quickly and in cold blood, just a nuisance to get rid of. It doesn’t make it any better. Nothing will until he sees that she’s okay.

Finally, he slams the door open and walks in, keeping his wings tucked close to his body to fit through it. He never felt like he needed them out before, not to deal with a single human murderer, but recent events have taught him he has been overestimating himself. What if gaining his invulnerability back was temporary? What if it’s gone again? He can’t take risks, not for this.

That feeling of being powerless, it scares him to the bone. That moment when he was frozen, useless, forced to watch as a man almost stabbed her to death; unable to help her to the point where _she_ had to rescue _him_. Pathetic. Unacceptable. Inconceivable.

His feathers turn sharp and bladed at his back, wings ready to snap open and cut. If the Detective is here alive – because she is, she is, she _has_ to be – and if it turns out that he is vulnerable once more, he needs all the extra help the appendages can give him. They have protected her once; if needed, they will again. If needed, he will let more bullets go through them, or knives, or whatever else can be thrown at them. He will let them be reduced to shreds, to smithereens, to paper strips barely hanging on to his bones.

_Just be okay. Just be safe. Just be here._

But she isn’t. She is none of those things.

There are pictures and papers on the floor, upturned chairs, her laptop and phone destroyed. There are signs of a struggle, _her_ struggle, but no Detective in sight. In a frenzy, Lucifer checks the other rooms of the house, too, but the place is as quiet as a grave and as empty as a soulless corpse resting in it.

There is no one here. She’s gone.

“Detective?” he still croaks once he’s back at the entrance, almost wishing she’ll just pop out from behind the kitchen counter to laugh at him and tell him it was all an elaborate prank. He will yell at her, maybe, but only for a moment; then he’ll let the relief win over the anger and join her in her laughter.

 _You got me there, my clever Detective_ , he will tell her. _Congratulations, you scared the hell out of the Devil himself._

But Chloe doesn’t come out from behind the counter. There is no silly, demented-witch-on-crack laughter filling the room. Because this is not a prank. This is happening.

He knows he has to call for backup, immediately. Alert the LAPD and start the search. But when he takes his new phone out of his pocket (he must have thrown the old one too far out that window, there was no way of finding it again), his hands tremble, and the device drops to the floor.

“Bloody _hell_ ,” Lucifer curses under his breath, kneeling to pick it up. His eyes follow the movement of his right hand, growing wide as soon as he sees the skin there.

It’s red. Red and scarred and ravaged, and he’s not consciously making it so.

“No, no, no, not again!” he panics, his knees stuck to the floor as he looks at the other hand, only to find it in a similar state. The red is spreading, slowly making its way up to his wrists, because of course it is.

This is his fault. It’s all his fault.

He left her alone. He abandoned her even though she could have used his help. He let his silly plans distract him from the work she wanted to do with him; together, as a team, as _partners_.

He’s a failure. A disgrace. Useless, bloody _useless_ once more.

But no matter. Devil hands can still pick up a phone and dial a number. He'll deal with this later, if only he could stop himself from _shaking_ ; if only he could tell his breathing to stop being so quick, _too_ quick, leaving him gasping and clutching at his shirt in desperation.

He’s having a panic attack, he distantly realizes, not that giving it a name helps in any way. The anxiety in his chest is digging a hole through it, his heart pumping blood so fast he hears it rushing in his ears. Just because Chloe isn’t dead _here_ , doesn’t mean she isn’t dead, period. It was night when she left the message. It was _hours_ ago. For all he knows, she’s left this plane of existence already, certainly gone where he can’t follow.

He feels like he can’t breathe, without her. He feels like there is no reason to.

That’s when suddenly, like clockwork, his body catches up.

And Lucifer can’t breathe _at all_.

In a flash, his airways close up, as if someone just tied a noose around his neck and is pulling it tighter and tighter. His nature rebels to him all over again, betraying him, manifesting into existence what his mind is subtly whispering to him: _You don’t need any air in your lungs if you can’t share it with her. There is no point in breathing if she isn’t any longer._

He knows he is making this happen to himself, but it doesn’t make any difference, doesn’t stop it from continuing. He hunches over, one red hand clawing at his throat, the other frantically unbuttoning his shirt in some pitiful attempt to relieve himself of the choking sensation. Behind him, his wings flail and twitch in time with his gasping, agonized noises, sending papers and pictures flying away from their spots, ruining and messing with what is now a crime scene. Of her kidnapping. Of her murder, perhaps.

She might be dead, because of him. At the very least, she has certainly been _hurt_ because of him.

He can feel the burns crawling up his arms now, under his sleeves. And when, still gasping for air, he turns left and right, he sees feathers disappearing in uneven patches, replaced by blood-red, veiny tissue. The outer tips turn into clawed thumbs under his very eyes, black and wicked and sharp, while between them and his back, a battle of wills takes place as what is left of his angelic wings tries to cling to his form, advancing and retreating rhythmically to push his other side back into the shadows of his soul.

It’s unclear, which side is winning. And in the meantime, the world is getting blurred at the edges of his vision, his consciousness slipping away from his grasp. Even now that all he needs to do is make a bloody phone call, he can’t. He can’t do anything right, not even for her, _especially_ not for her, the woman who saw the monster in her closet and invited him into her arms instead of turning on the light. Chloe. _His_ Chloe.

Just when he thinks he’s about to pass out, a noise startles him from the hallway right beyond the door. Lucifer turns, realizing someone is approaching, but he doesn’t have the strength to put his wings away at this point. And who knows, maybe it’s her. Maybe she freed herself, and this nightmare is over, and he can breathe again.

“Chloe? Why is your door ope– _Holy cow!_ ” Miss Lopez jumps in the air at the sight of him, one hand flying to the cross dangling from her neck.

~

Ella listened to Chloe’s voicemail as soon as she woke up, bright and early to get to the precinct on time. Pete had an article to finish last night, so she spent it at her place while he stayed at his, but the keys to his apartment are now linked to the others she keeps in her bag – a reminder that she can use them, if she wants. That she can take the leap, even if it seems too fast, because for once the result might not be a freaking train wreck.

But Chloe seemed anxious over the phone, asking her to drop by her house as soon as possible to try and help her track down the origin of a series of online posts; something about the Whisper Killer case not being solved, about another one being on the loose. So when Ella called her back, but Chloe did not pick up, she decided to show up at her apartment instead of looking for her at the station, just to see if maybe Chloe fell asleep while working late, or if she still needed her assistance there before continuing their investigation at the precinct.

When she reaches her friend’s apartment, though, something feels wrong. Very wrong.

“Chloe? Why is your door ope– _Holy cow!_ ”

From the floor right next to the counter, Lucifer stares back at her. And he has _wings_. Real wings, moving wings, wings that are 100% _alive_ and somehow attached to his body through the fabric of his jacket. Something strange is happening to them: some sort of... transformation that isn’t fully completed, that is _trying_ to take place but can’t. Feathers appear and disappear, showing patches of thin red skin before covering it once more, while on the sides, clawed tips give way to white softness in a weird, hybrid-like mess.

He’s the Devil. He’s an angel. He’s _both_ of those things, which is something she understands even as she feels her head try to explode, but she didn’t think it would be... this. She never imagined these natures coexisting–no, _clashing_ in a war for dominance.

There are too many things to take in at once. He’s not a method actor, he never has been. He really is the Devil, and she’s _friends_ with him. At the realization, at the sense of shock overwhelming her, her first instinct is to flee, to turn around and run as fast as she can. It’s all true, but that isn’t what surprises her: she has (almost) always believed it was. But _Lucifer_? No. No way. Her silly Lucifer, with the matching pocket squares and crude jokes? Chips-and-Nutella-from-the-jar guy being the Prince of Darkness, King of Hell, Evil Incarnate? Nope. Totally didn’t see this one coming.

Problem is, she can’t leave. Because after the first, life-changing realization immediately comes another, much more grounded and real: Lucifer is choking. Literally gasping for air and failing, red ( _RED?_ ) hands clawing at his neck over bulging tendons and veins. His eyes are wide and scared, clearly panicking at the fact that she caught him... well, red-handed, but also begging her, pleading her to _do_ something.

She can’t leave him like this. She can’t let him die, even though she doesn’t get how it’s a thing in the first place.

 _I'd hate to return to Hell sober_ , she remembers him saying, another time he was dying under her eyes, bleeding out on the floor of Lux. Another time she dismissed him and his antics, not knowing he knew for a fact that he would end up there. Down there, in the kingdom he rules, or used to.

Her feet stay stuck to the floor, but only for a moment. In the next instant, he manages to speak, and it’s the little push she needs.

“ _Miss Lopez_ ,” he chokes out, redness sneaking up his neck from under his shirt, eyes flicking brown to red, red to brown, over and over again like a light switch going off and on. Saying her name, as short and simple as it is, would have taken him less effort considering the state he is in, and the fact that he still used what is clearly a term of endearment to him makes her insides twist and her knees go weak.

It’s him. It’s still him. Her colleague, her big bro, her tall, British, absolutely ridiculous dork of a friend.

After dropping her bag to the floor, Ella rushes to him. She kneels in front of him, trying not to focus on the crazy changes happening to his eyes and skin and wings, and takes his face in her hands.

“Lucifer? Lucifer, what’s going on? Did you–are you choking on something? Is something stuck in your throat?”

He shakes his head at her, wheezing, then shifts his gaze to the side in the direction of the dining table. Ella follows it until her eyes land on the mess she initially didn’t notice, on the pictures, papers and broken devices on the floor. For a moment, she assumes his wings have caused it, but then it all clicks in her mind.

Chloe is not here. Chloe never answered her call. Chloe was investigating a serial killer on the loose. Chloe is in danger.

When she looks back at Lucifer, the sheer terror in his flickering red eyes is all the confirmation she needs. He is freaking out. In his own... weird, angel-and-Devil way, switching between one form and the other while probably having the mother of all panic attacks.

“She–it will all be okay, you hear me?” she stammers, unshed tears stinging her eyes, because she knows she can’t know that for a fact, but has to pretend she does. “Just–please, breathe, Lucifer! You need to calm down, you need to breathe! Please!”

A broken sob tears its way out of Lucifer’s half-red throat, as burned, rough-skinned hands clutch at her wrists. Ella flinches at the sight and feel, but doesn’t remove her hands from his cheeks as she stares into an inferno of burning flames that comes and goes, comes and goes, just like the pained, thin, choking gasps erupting from Lucifer’s lips.

He’s not calming down, and his wings are almost completely bat-like behind his back now. Under her palms, his skin is changing in texture, too, turning full of ridges and hollows. She doesn’t know what will happen if she doesn’t stop it, but it doesn’t seem to be good.

“Lucifer, please, you–you’re scaring me!” she cries. She mostly means she’s scared _for_ him, not _of_ him: he looks so lost, so helpless, and it’s heartbreaking to see. But his expression turns even more haunted at the words, his gigantic gargoyle wings pushing him backwards and away from her in a powerful flap that sends him crashing into the side of the counter.

Ella scrambles to go after him, taking a hold of him again. She has to figure out a way to get through to him, she needs to find the right words to tell him to break him out of the prison he has built for himself.

When she finds them, they seem glaringly obvious.

“We can’t help Chloe if you don’t calm down!” she urges, forcing him to look into her eyes by keeping his face steady. He has no stubble anymore, only awful, slick, tangled burns, but the top half is still human in appearance. “She needs us, Lucifer! She needs _you_ , and for that, you have to breathe! She’s out there somewhere, and we need to find her! You can’t lose it now! You can’t abandon her!”

His panting, rugged breaths start to slow down at that. His twitching wings sag, now hanging limp at his sides like curtains. The burns recede, but only to his neck, and the color of his eyes settles on a swirling, blazing red, no trace of their ordinary brown underneath the fire. But at least, he begins to breathe, and Ella helps him through it, mimicking the motion with one hand. Up and down. In and out. Slow and deep.

“Like that. Good. That’s good, Lucifer.”

As he relaxes against the counter, sighing and slumping in exhaustion, she does too, but doesn’t find it in herself to move away. This... creature before her, no, this person, needs her help. In her heart, she knows this is the right thing to do. Surely, once all is said and done, she will have time to have a freak-out of her own.

Pulling her hands away from his now normal cheeks, she settles them on his clothed knees, drawing soothing circles there with her thumbs. The claws on top of his wings are creepy to behold, she will admit, as are the black, pointed nails attached to his fingertips. So she decides to focus on Lucifer’s face, the one thing that can ground her, despite the fact that his eyes, too, are anything but human right now.

“She’s gone,” is the first thing Lucifer says, his voice left hoarse from his struggle, dark hair messy and falling over his forehead. “He took her. He hurt her. He–”

“You don’t know that,” Ella cuts him off, refusing to entertain the thought. “We don’t know what happened, but we will find out, okay? Just let me get my phone so I can call this in.”

But before she can turn to go get her bag, she realizes she can’t really... do that. Not yet, at least.

“Uhm...” she hesitates, not sure how to ask. “Can you, like... change... back? I don’t think we should let other people... see this.”

How is she handling it so well? She’s probably in shock, she realizes, fuelled by the adrenaline of the whole situation. Good luck to her when it wears off.

“I...” Lucifer looks down at his hands, then up at his wings. He does something funny with his shoulders, a shrug but not really, and just like that, they disappear in a whoosh, leaving her stunned and gaping. “There, that’s something at least,” he says.

“What–how did you–alright, nevermind,” Ella keeps her curiosity at bay, even though deep down, she already wants to know _everything_ about how it works. How cool is that?! But there is no time. They need to focus, and hurry. “What about the rest?”

Lucifer sits up a bit straighter, no longer having wings in the way. Anguish twists the lines of his face once more, making him look broken and almost absurdly small.

“I can’t change back,” he confesses, ashamed. “Not until I know she’s alright.”

“Why?” Ella can’t help but ask. That doesn’t make any sense to her. Now that he’s calm, shouldn’t he be in control of the way he looks? He has always looked normal. Human. He has always hidden this side of him from everyone, not that she blames him for it. After all, there are things she hides from people, too.

“Because _this_ ,” Lucifer gestures at his eyes, then points at one of his hands with the other, “is what happens when I _hate_ myself. And why the bloody hell should I not? It’s all my fault. I should have been here, and I wasn’t. She asked me, and I left her _alone_.”

He probably received the same voicemail she did, Ella reasons. But clearly, Chloe also invited him to join her before. She understands how this is making him feel, and a tiny part of her is angry at him, too. But it’s not like he can be with Chloe all the time, is it? Things happen. People have other plans. Apparently, not even the Devil can know beforehand when an evil act will be committed; he can only punish the guilty afterwards.

Which is exactly what Lucifer has been doing all this time at Chloe’s side, she realizes.

“The last time it happened, _she_ helped me,” Lucifer continues, almost talking to himself now. Ella tries to mask her surprise at the fact that Chloe _knows_ , watching him as he ponders his next words. “I can’t do it on my own. I am useless, bloody _useless_ without her.”

She feels her heart give a squeeze. She’s still processing the fact that what she witnessed was a literal manifestation of Lucifer’s feelings toward himself, because holy crap, that doesn’t sound like something anyone would want. But she has to try and comfort him, at least.

“That’s not true,” she objects, squeezing his knees with her hands. “And Chloe doesn’t think that, either. She’s counting on you to find her, so you can’t doubt yourself, alright? You are not useless. You... you help out. You always help out.”

A long, long talk about synthetic wood in her lab. A blanket wrapped around her shoulders in the evidence locker. A helicopter ride and a night at the opera. His arms around her, hesitant but always squeezing back in the end.

Yes, the Devil is Ella’s friend. Another quirky thing to add to a long list, right after “personal ghost who eventually decided to walk toward the light”. God is real, and she stands in the presence of His bright, rejected child – the proudest, the most beautiful, the most despised and blamed and vilified.

She doesn’t really know how to feel about it. She supposes she’ll have to explore what that means later, what it says about her faith in a Father Lucifer hates.

He smiles at her sadly, tilting his head to the side, but doesn’t answer. His red eyes are so expressive, no less than when they’re brown, full of gratitude but showing that he doesn’t really believe her.

Regardless, they still need to find a solution so they can call for help. Ella could send Lucifer away, in theory, but there’s no way in Hell (see what she did there?) he’s going to stay put while others investigate Chloe’s disappearance. And she’s almost certain not everyone in the LAPD will be as cool with it all as she’s turning out to be.

“You should find something to cover yourself with,” she suggests eventually. It’s the best thing she could come up with, and Lucifer’s face brightens as he seems to agree.

“Right! Right, yes, good call. Stevie Wonder on a snow day 2.0 it is.” (whatever that means)

“...yeah. Okay. You... go do that, then.”

She stands up and steps back, leaving him space to do the same. The collar of his purple shirt hides the burns marring his neck, but not completely; she imagines he can find a scarf for that. To hide his hands, instead, she realizes the easiest solution is to give him a pair of gloves from her bag, so she goes to retrieve it and offers it to him, then steps outside to make the call to the LAPD.

Saying it out loud is painful, because it makes it real, but at least she now knows that the whole precinct will work tirelessly to find her missing friend. Dread is there, just simmering under the surface of her calm and professional façade: after Charlotte’s murder and Charlie’s kidnapping, she knows her heart won’t be able to take it if Chloe turns up dead. It’s too much. Despite her renewed faith in God, now once again put to the test, it’s just _too much_.

When she steps back inside the apartment, Lucifer is standing in the middle of the room, staring at the mess left by Chloe’s confrontation with her assailant. Ella walks up to him and stops at his side, taking in the silk scarf he indeed wrapped around his neck (clearly from one of Chloe’s drawers, which she finds terribly endearing) and the pair of black sunglasses resting on his head, ready to be worn over his nose when backup will arrive. He would look kind of ridiculous and adorable, to be honest, if it wasn’t for the look of absolute despair on his face.

It’s bad. Ella knows it is. She’s trying very hard not to imagine the struggle that took place, but she’ll have to eventually, just as she does for every other crime scene. She needs to approach this like a puzzle to be solved, but for once, putting the pieces together scares her more than it thrills her, especially at the thought of doing it in front of Lucifer.

And yet, it’s her job, her duty. It’s the one way she can make herself useful, the very thing that gives her life a purpose. After wearing a pair of gloves as well, her tool bag now slung over her shoulder, she braces herself to start examining the evidence in front of her, but Lucifer suddenly whispers, “Miss Lopez?”

She turns to look at him. “Yes?”

He opens and closes his mouth, searching for words, before he manages to speak again.

“I... I didn’t even ask you. Are you... okay?”

 _With me_ , she pictures him adding, but he doesn’t. Still, it’s obvious.

Swallowing, Ella forces herself to look into the eyes of the Devil. The sad, haunted, devastated eyes of the Devil.

“Were you ever here to hurt us?” she asks the Prince of Lies, but no, that doesn’t sound right. _This_ Lucifer, the one she knows, does not lie. She has seen the angel in him, just now; she has witnessed his battle against a darker, rotten version of himself that has won, yes, but only because he wrongly thinks he deserves it.

“ _No_ ,” Lucifer gasps, his expression pleading. Pleading for her to believe him. “No, never. I would _never_.”

And after all, he never did. She’s not sure why she asked. But it felt sensible, didn’t it? An understandable thing to wonder. What is Satan doing here, on Earth, in LA, in their lives? What does he want?

But the moment she asks herself the question, Ella also knows the answer.

“You love her, don’t you? You fell in love with her.”

Lucifer makes a choked noise, tripping over the beginning of a sentence that doesn’t come out. Then he stops, steels himself, and gives her a small nod.

“If she's–if something’s happened to her, I don’t know what I'll–”

“I know.”

She thinks of the way Chloe and Lucifer have been dancing around each other for so long, like silly teenagers with a crush. One step forward, two steps back, somehow always unable to just... meet in the middle. Other people coming in between, misunderstandings, disappearances that now feel suspicious in light of what she has discovered; time and time again, she’s watched them fail to make it work. Until they did. Until they showed up at a crime scene hand in hand and grinning like absolute fools, and then at another one with even bigger smiles on their stupid, love-sick faces.

Ella wants it for herself, too, this kind of love. Who knows, maybe she has already found it but can’t see it yet, or refuses to out of fear to be disappointed. Only time will tell. But in the meantime, she knows Lucifer is being truthful, and that if and when she will want to know more about him and his world, he will be an open book. He has always been, she just... didn’t know it was a true story instead of fiction.

“And to answer your question to me... yes. Yes, I am okay,” she tells him with a small smile. “I mean, I will _totally_ have a mental breakdown at some point, so expect a lot of rambling voicemails and a huuuge list of questions, but... yeah. I don’t mind that you have freaky bat wings and Cyclops eyes, dude.” She gasps. “Wait, can you actually shoot _laser beams_ from them? Man, that would be so cool.”

Lucifer snorts, sadness slipping away from his features, if only for a moment. He smirks at her, knowing exactly what she’s trying to do, but without calling her out on it.

“No, Miss Lopez. No, I cannot.”

“Ah, bummer.” She elbows his side playfully, then begins to make her way among the pieces of evidence scattered on the floor. Hopefully, Chloe left some note behind that can help them track down their guy, or the man himself left DNA traces to analyze and use to find him. Find _her_.

“Thank you,” she hears Lucifer say from behind her. “For what you did, for what you _said_. For helping me.”

Ella turns and smiles at him.

“Thank me once you have Chloe back into your arms, deal?” she replies, and he nods, before finally joining her to carefully peruse the scene in search of clues.

Chloe _will_ be back into his arms, and into Ella's life. She knows it. She believes in it.

At the end of the day, the Devil has never disappointed her before.


End file.
